


Non-Verbal Communication

by everythingmurky



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 20:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10602012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Ellie thinks she knows what Hardy's thinking when she looks at him. He knows she's wrong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well... I got rejected from an original writing thing, and that led to a bit of depression and tears and a draft of this that was from Ellie's point of view and it wasn't as good as I knew Hardy's pov would be, so I flipped it real quick and did this.
> 
> I just needed... something, so I wrote it.

* * *

“He accused me of hiding in my work,” Miller said, grumbling on about the same conversation for the last ten minutes now. Hardy had mostly tuned out her rant, letting her go on as he finished up some of his tedious paperwork. “Me.”

Hardy gave her a look, tempted to snort, and she frowned. She was hiding so much in her job she didn't even _know_ she was hiding in her job. She sat back, watching him. After a few minutes of his silence, she folded her arms over her chest.

“Really? From you? If anyone here is hiding in their work, it's you,” Miller told him. “Didn't it cost you your family _and_ your health? You've got no room to talk, Mister.”

Hardy shook his head. “Never said I didn't. Didn't even say you did.”

“Yes, you did.”

“The words did not come out of my mouth.”

“They don't need to when they're all over your face.”

“You think you're that good at reading my face?” Hardy countered, and she nodded. Of course she thought she was. She'd worked with him for long enough, and most people were under the impression that they were friends. Or that she had Stockholm syndrome. He suspected it was more of the latter.

“I know I am.”

“You're not.”

She shook her head. “No, I am. I know exactly what you're thinking. I bet I could guess, word for word the thoughts going through your head now. Let's see... 'This should be good. Miller has no idea.' How close was I?”

Since he'd been thinking her denial was oddly endearing and that she had no idea how he'd come to feel about her, much to his dismay, he almost laughed when he told her, “If you'd been further off course, you'd be in America by now.”

“What?”

He nodded. She never saw it when she looked at him, and in many ways, that was a relief. He needed her. She was his only friend, and while somewhere he'd tripped and fallen well past that line and hated himself for it, she didn't need to know because she'd run. “You can't read my face that well, or you'd be long gone, Miller. I know it, and we can leave it at that.”

“What do you mean, I'd be gone? Are you really going to tell me instead of laughing at my expense, which I swear you want to, you're sitting there insulting me? I'm not sure there's much you could say that I haven't heard, and I'm still here.”

“Some things still scare you,” he said, closing the folder on his paperwork. “Or you wouldn't be hiding in your job.”

She grimaced. “Fine. Just tell me what you were really thinking.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“What would make you think that I would tell you just because you said please?”

“It's what people do.”

He snorted. “It is not. Now go home, Miller. You have a life you've been avoiding. Children. Family. Love. All that stuff you shouldn't hide from.”

“I don't know. Kids can be downright terrifying sometimes,” she said. “Ha, I got you. You were so smiling there, Mister. Busted. Now you have to tell me what you were thinking.”

“I never agreed to that.”

“I _will_ get it out of you.”

“Not while I'm conscious and breathing,” he muttered, reaching for his jacket. There were plenty of things he couldn't say, and how he felt about her was one of them. She kept missing it when he said it without words, and for now, that kept them both safe.


End file.
